Driving in the Shadows
Rural-Urban Labour Migrants as Informal Taxi Drivers in Post-Socialist Tashkent
In:
Labour, Mobility and Informal Practices in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe
Power, Institutions and Mobile Actors in Transnational Space
Routledge, London, New York, 2021
p. 36-50
In the last three decades, stagnant unemployment and low salaries in Uzbekistan’s provinces have forced impoverished rural populations—primarily young men—to migrate to Tashkent, the republic’s capital. Yet, the civil registration mechanism in place in Uzbekistan, coupled with these individuals’ low qualifications, greatly inhibit their integration into Tashkent’s job market. Inevitably, most of them resort to temporary or odd labour-intensive jobs in the informal economy, but those who have access to a car are presented with the opportunity to work as informal taxi drivers. Compared to other informal jobs, so-called ‘taxiing’ provides rural–urban labour migrants with better working conditions, a higher income, a sense of stability and a larger degree of freedom and autonomy. Yet, this activity has its drawbacks as well, for its informal character makes drivers a target of the state-led offensive against informal taxis. Based on 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted amongst Tashkent’s informal taxi drivers, this chapter explores the multiple modalities of informality that inform the everyday lives of the rural–urban labour migrants who become informal taxi drivers, essentially contributing to a broader understanding of both migration-related informal practices and informal urban transportation in post-Soviet Central Asia.